Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Monday, August 15, 2016

Secret Ukraine Ledger Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief

Trump and Manafort

If one is still wondering why Donald Trump will not release his tax returns, a new story in the New York Times that focuses on payments made to Trump Campaign chair, Paul Manafort, certainly suggests the Donald might too have income he want's no one in the American public to see. The $12.7 million in payments made to Manafort were made by Ukraine's then pro-Russia government. The New York Times reports on the at best sleazy and at worst criminal activities of Trump's campaign chair. No doubt the desperation of many in the GOP will only be intensified as this news makes its way across the news media and blogosphere. Here are story excerpts (note how Manafort continued to work for anti-western interests):

On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office
used for years by Donald
J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for
Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still
there as recently as May.

And Mr. Manafort’s presence
remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining
secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business
with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot
Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr.
Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

Handwritten ledgers show
$12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr.
Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that
the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients
also included election officials.

In addition, criminal
prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies that helped
members of Mr. Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles,
including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo,
golf course and tennis court. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these
companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television
assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch,
Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir
V. Putin.

[A]n examination of Mr. Manafort’s activities offers new details of
how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from
powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev.

Anti-corruption officials
there say the payments earmarked for Mr. Manafort, previously unreported, are a
focus of their investigation, though they have yet to determine if he actually
received the cash. While Mr. Manafort is not a target in the separate inquiry
of offshore activities, prosecutors say he must have realized the implications
of his financial dealings.

“He
understood what was happening in Ukraine,” said Vitaliy Kasko, a former senior
official with the general prosecutor’s office in Kiev. “It would have to be
clear to any reasonable person that the Yanukovych clan, when it came to power,
was engaged in corruption.”

The developments in Ukraine underscore the risky nature of the
international consulting that has been a staple of Mr. Manafort’s business
since the 1980s, when he went to work for the Philippine dictator Ferdinand
Marcos. Before joining Mr. Trump’s campaign this spring, Mr. Manafort’s most
prominent recent client was Mr. Yanukovych, who — like Mr. Marcos — was deposed
in a popular uprising.

Before he fled to Russia two
years ago, Mr. Yanukovych and his Party of Regions relied heavily on the advice
of Mr. Manafort and his firm, who helped them win several elections. During
that period, Mr. Manafort never registered as a foreign agent with the United
States Justice Department — as required of those seeking to influence American
policy on behalf of foreign clients — although one of his subcontractors did.

While
working in Ukraine, Mr. Manafort had also positioned himself to profit from
business deals that benefited from connections he had gained through his
political consulting. One of them, according to court filings, involved a
network of offshore companies that government investigators and independent
journalists in Ukraine have said was used to launder public money and assets
purportedly stolen by cronies of the government.

The
role of the offshore companies in business dealings involving Mr. Manafort came
to light because of court filings in the Cayman Islands and in a federal court
in Virginia related to an investment fund, Pericles Emerging Markets. Mr.
Manafort and several partners started the fund in 2007, and its major backer
was Mr. Deripaska, the Russian mogul, to whom the State Department has refused
to issue a visa, apparently because of allegations linking him to Russian
organized crime, a charge he has denied.

Mr.
Manafort continued working in Ukraine after the demise of Mr. Yanukovych’s
government, helping allies of the ousted president and others form a political
bloc that opposed the new pro-Western administration. Some of his aides were in
Ukraine as recently as this year, and Ukrainian company records give no
indication that Mr. Manafort has formally dissolved the local branch of his
company, Davis Manafort International, directed by a
longtime assistant, Konstantin V. Kilimnik.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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